Tools for Success

Over the next few months we will report information critical to your success as an in-house counsel. In this issue, we focus on the financial aspects of managing the legal department. Our annual budget survey provides you with benchmarking data you can use to defend your legal department spend.

In the coming months we will publish other surveys that can help you confront legal and management challenges. In the July issue, look for our annual Survey of General Counsel, which allows you to assess the quality of the relationships you have with your law firms. Following that we will reveal our revamped report on the 200 largest legal departments, and a brand new survey on legal department diversity. Our goal with each of these surveys is to provide you with solid benchmarking data against which to measure your department's performance in a number of key areas.

We will be supplementing all of this information with a much more robust Web site that we will unveil in the coming weeks. While there are many sites devoted to the legal industry, ours will be the only online resource built exclusively for the community of general counsel and other in-house counsel.

Like the print magazine, our Web site will provide in-house counsel with the resources they so desperately need. Our goal is ambitious. Whenever you have a question or need a resource, we want you to go to www.insidecounsel.com first. We want to show you the practical solutions to the complex problems you face on a daily basis.

And that's not all InsideCounsel has planned for the coming months.

Most of the skills in-house counsel need to function in a corporate setting are learned on the job. To help bridge the gap between your legal training and the business skills you must develop, we are pleased to announce our brand-new program: Strategic Business Management for the Corporate Legal Executive. Think of it as a one-day MBA for general counsel. The first program will be held in New York on Sept. 28, followed by another on the West Coast. These conferences will be taught by academics and a select group of industry leaders.

In all of our points of contact with the in-house community, be it online, in person or in print, our goal is to give you tools and resources to be more successful. Share your ideas with us, and we will respond. Let me know what you think by e-mailing me at nat@insidecounsel.com.